Focused Cowboys keep their cool

The team that Giants fans love to hate, the Dallas Cowboys, having surrendered a 15-point lead, stood 80 yards and four minutes away from deciding whether their day in the New Jersey chill was for triumph or for naught.

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Days when the clock was frittered away. Or the quarterback threw a late interception. Or the defense couldn’t make a last critical stop.

“We call it, ‘nut-cutting time,’” Garrett said.

“We stepped up today. We made the plays we needed to make.”

Garrett didn’t say it, but I will. Sometimes the Cowboys have handled those “nut-cutting” moments like, well, squirrels. But Sunday’s final-second, 24-21 win over the New York Giants, considering the stakes and the weather conditions, resembled a team that is ready for the challenging month ahead.

At kickoff Sunday, when the sun was still shining, the temperature at MetLife Stadium was officially recorded at 25 degrees with a wind chill of 18.

Not exactly Tony Romo weather. Instead of the Cowboys’ usual aerial circus, the evening seemed destined to look more like Disney on Ice.

Thus, with their new play-calling relay squad in place — Wade Wilson in the press box, Garrett whispering in Romo’s ear — the Cowboys set about figuring out what would work against the streaking Giants and what wouldn’t.

“It wasn’t so much the wind,” Garrett said, “but rather that the thing was so slippery.”

With passes to the deep sidelines and into the flat looking risky, the Cowboys had to make more use of the run. DeMarco Murray, with 86 yards on 14 carries, and Lance Dunbar (20 yards on three carries) made that part of the strategy work.

The rest fell to Romo and, in the end, Dez Bryant.

“I thought Tony did a really good job in this ballgame,” Garrett said. “We seemed to be one score away — a few times — from putting the game away, and we didn’t.